Last updated on October 28, 2020
As more DFW businesses and schools have reopened, and as cases have begun to surge again, researchers are expanding participation for the DFW COVID-19 Prevalence Study – uniquely designed to reveal how widely COVID has spread and why some communities are harder hit.
The study by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center and Texas Health is opening the process to allow anyone who lives in Dallas or Tarrant county to register online to participate. Individuals who sign up may answer surveys online or via phone and may be further selected for additional tests to determine whether they have or ever had COVID.
To volunteer, go to https://utswmed.org/covidstudy
“Our study seeks critical answers we still don’t have — how many in the community have been infected with COVID and why some communities are being harder hit. The large data set from 30,000 community volunteers will allow us to improve the strategies for countering its spread as we continue to restore business and school operations,” said Amit Singal, M.D., professor of internal medicine and population and data sciences who is principal investigator for the study.
“Since launching the study, we’ve had ongoing requests beyond those directly invited to participate, so we’ve expanded the parameters to provide an avenue for anyone living in Dallas and Tarrant counties to participate,” Singal said.
“We’ve made important strides in modeling and predicting COVID surges, which are mostly based on acute infections. We still need to understand how many people may have had mild or no symptoms andre needed from all racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, but particularly from African American and Hispanic communities, which are being disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.
“We have the questions,” said Jasmin Tiro, Ph.D., a co-investigator and an associate professor of population and data sciences at UT Southwestern, “but our community holds the key and we need as many participants as possible to help us unlock those answers.”
Singal is a Dedman Family Scholar in Clinical Care and holds the David Bruton, Jr. Professorship in Clinical Cancer Research.
